Pacifist nun out of prison
Dominican sister says time at FCI was 'sacred' By Eileen FitzGerald
THE Danbury NEWS-TIMES


DANBURY - "This is the day, the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice, let us be glad," a buoyant Ardeth Platte sang as she danced into the Trellis Restaurant on Thursday morning.
Platte, a 69-year-old nun, wore institutional gray sweats and shared unrestrained good spirits after being released from federal prison, where she spent more than three years for pouring her blood on a nuclear missile site.
She thanked a dozen people celebrating her release from the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury and showed little remorse for her crime or anti-nuclear arms views.
"God forgive us for what we are doing in this country," she said. "I come out of prison stronger than ever, more passionate about the issues and know I will give the rest of my life for peace."
Platte, a member of the Dominican Religious Order of Grand Rapids, Mich., and of the Jonah House Community in Baltimore, made national news when she was convicted, along with two other Dominican sisters, for obstructing national defense and damaging government property.
On Oct. 6, 2002 - the first anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan - the sisters cut a lock to a fence that guarded a silo housing a 355-kiloton Minuteman III missile in northeastern Colorado.
They tapped on the rails holding the missile with small hammers and poured four baby bottles of their blood on the cement casing. They sang Christian songs for nearly an hour as they waited for authorities to arrive.
The nuns testified at their trial that the protest was a "symbolic disarmament" and did not endanger the national defense.

U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn said at the July 2003 sentencing hearing that it was "incredible and inexcusable" that the peace activists would place U.S. Air Force security teams who responded to the scene in harm's way.
"It was dangerously irresponsible," Blackburn said.
The judge sentenced the nuns to prison terms ranging from 30 to 41 months. Platte received the longest sentence because of her long record of protests that have landed her in about 30 jails and prisons. She was released Thursday after serving 36 months, which includes the time she spent in a county lockup awaiting formal sentencing.
Platte still faces three years of supervised probation and must pay restitution for damage at the military base. Platte insists that she will not pay the government any money because some of it would be spent on war and defense.
"These charges remain bogus to us," Platte said, sitting before her first breakfast in freedom - wheat toast and water.
"This is civil resistance, standing firmly against the crime of the government. When the government commits crimes, it behooves the citizens to stand up," she said. "Rest assured, I would never stand for this government to allow any killing. We have to learn how, as civilized people, to solve conflict in other ways." ADVERTISEMENT Platte, who was also at FCI in 1999, said this time she served as a chapel clerk, helping set up prayer services for 11 different faiths.
"I take each precious day at a time and fill that day to the brim so time is a little bit irrelevant," she said.
Up by 4 a.m., she would tidy up the public rooms, listen to some radio news and eat breakfast by 6:15 a.m. She would pray with the women of all faiths, lead discussions and set up services.
In prison, she wrote once: "This imprisonment has been sacred time - a plea for and end to war and nuclear weapons. I do not regret one day of it. I will continue to cry out: war never again, no more killings nor threats of genocide, no more illegal occupations and interventions in other people's lands."
On Thursday, Platt was picked up for her journey to Baltimore by Liz McAlister who, with her husband, the Rev. Philip Berrigan, played a leading role in the anti-war movement starting in the 1960s. McAlister was accompanied by her daughter, Kate Berrigan, and Susan Crane, an activist based at Baltimore's Jonah House. Also greeting Platt was Stephen Kobasa, his wife Anne Somsel, and their children, Clare, 17 and Rachel, 15, students at Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven. The family traveled from New Haven to Danbury every two weeks to visit Platte for the past two years.
"She uplifts you," Rachel Kobasa said. "She was in jail and she never lost her spirit. I always feel happy around her. She has a great aura that makes everyone feel good about her."
Rachel Kobasa said she and other young people are sympathetic to the anti-war effort. The most impressive thing about Platte, she said, is that she was willing to go to jail for her views. "To do something like that (protest) knowing the consequences, you have to be such a strong person," she said.
Her father has known Platte for years and was impressed with the work of all three Dominican sisters who went to prison.
"All three of these women suffered heavy consequences," Kobasa said. "What they were facing knowingly, up against this extraordinary threat to all humanity that they wanted to expose, it's serious stuff."
Platte entered the convent in Michigan in 1954 and was a schoolteacher in Saginaw. She became one of the few Catholic nuns in the country to hold public office and served on Saginaw's City Council. For 12 years, she led protests at nuclear sites in Michigan, when the state had the highest number of sites, and slowly the government removed them from the state.
The nuns and Jonah House activists have led dozens of anti-war actions.
"We felt led by the spirit to shine a light to what the United States was planning to do," Platte said. "This is a little piece of sand on the seashore compared to what other people are doing who work on peace in the world, but together we make a difference."

Contact Eileen FitzGerald
at eileenf@newstimes.com